The Assassination of Jesse James...
Sep. 21st, 2007 08:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenafrom Manola Dargis' review of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I haven't decided if I'm going to see it yet:
The question of whether the world or cinema needs another monument to an American gangster, a thug who lived by the gun and repeatedly killed in cold blood, remains unanswered by the film and its makers. And perhaps that isn’t a question worth asking. This is, after all, meant to be an evening’s entertainment, and its burdens should remain modest even if its goals are not.... The true story of Jesse James, despite all the dime novels and B movies, remains untold, perhaps because in its savagery it really is as American as apple pie and, as such, unspeakably hard to tell.
It's an excellent question, and one I've asked repeatedly as I've explored both Westerns in film, and the West in history and popular imagination.
The question of whether the world or cinema needs another monument to an American gangster, a thug who lived by the gun and repeatedly killed in cold blood, remains unanswered by the film and its makers. And perhaps that isn’t a question worth asking. This is, after all, meant to be an evening’s entertainment, and its burdens should remain modest even if its goals are not.... The true story of Jesse James, despite all the dime novels and B movies, remains untold, perhaps because in its savagery it really is as American as apple pie and, as such, unspeakably hard to tell.
It's an excellent question, and one I've asked repeatedly as I've explored both Westerns in film, and the West in history and popular imagination.
